


Pale On The Horizon

by Eternal Scribe (Shadowcat)



Category: Forbidden Game - L. J. Smith
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-09-14
Updated: 2012-09-14
Packaged: 2017-11-14 05:49:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/511986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadowcat/pseuds/Eternal%20Scribe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She had promised to dream him into a better place... so why did he come awake laying on his back on the grass and looking up into the branches of what seemed to be an ancient tree?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pale On The Horizon

Time had no meaning when you were dead.

Which was why he wasn't sure how he had come to be in this place. The last thing he remembered was Jenny... Jenny leaning down and crying over him, telling him he couldn't die. Her hair draping over his face and chest like a golden shroud as she fought to push her light into his body and undo what his brethren had done.

She had promised to dream him into a better place... so why did he come awake laying on his back on the grass and looking up into the branches of what seemed to be an ancient tree?

He had been _unmade_. He knew that. He remembered the stabbing and tearing feeling as his name was cut out of his runestave. He had seen Jenny's horror as the silver ice had bled away from his rune and left a black and gaping hole. He had felt Jenny trying to carry him and her telling him that she didn't blame him for anything. She had forgiven him.

Which didn't explain why he was naked on the grass and looking up at the sky.

It wasn't a dream. He could tell that much by how real it all seemed. Jenny had always been an incredible dreamer, but she would never have dreamt him into someplace that was so uncomfortably real. It wouldn't have occured to her to make his forever an unpleasant place.

He got to his feet, swaying as he tried to get used to standing again. He must have been gone a very long time if he wasn't sure how to use his legs. As he held onto the tree for balance, he noticed something odd. There was a faint shape carved in the wood of the tree right at the level of his eyes. When he realized what he was looking at, his eyes widened.

What had Jenny done?

It was then that he looked around the area of the tree and realized that he seemed to be _inside_ a tree. The roots and branches seemed to have grown around the area to form a hidden place. He would have called it a cave, but it was much more alive than the caves he had been used to. No, this was a den made within the tree.

Made for a Shadow Man.

Made for _him_.

He turned back to the shape carved near his face and brought one shaking finger up to trace the shape. It was as he thought. It was a Rune.

" _Berkano_ ," he whispered. "Liberation." Or as close to it as possible. Jenny was trying to tell him that he was free... but free for what? His brethren had cut his name out of his...

Blood. He remembered feeling like he was bleeding. He remembered Jenny using her own blood to free the souls in the park. He eyed the Rune for a long moment and then lifted his wrist so that he could draw his nail along the inside of it. When the cut welled with blood, he dipped his finger in it and then painted the Rune Jenny had left him with his own blood.

At first, he didn't think anything had happened and he was about to growl with frustration. Then he felt something within the tree shift and as he lifted his head, a shelf seemed to appear in the tree right out of his reach. 

Before he could decide what he was going to do, he felt a pull deep within him. His nostrils flared and he closed his eyes and let what he was feeling envelop him for a moment. A faint scent filled the area and his eyes snapped open, his hunter's senses beginning to kick back in with a fierce hunger.

Blood. Not blood shed by him, but blood that was his even so. His lips pulled back from his teeth in a silent snarl. He knew the scent and the feel of that blood. He knew it as clearly as he knew his own name.

Jenny. His Jenny had bled here. She had bled enough here for there to be magic winding its tendrils through this place fed by her blood. Someone had bled her and he was going to make them pay.

First though, the rational part of his brain kicked in and he felt his power coursing back through his body as he moved up the tree to get at what Jenny had left him. He reached the shelf and realized that it was actually a drawer that had hidden by some kind of illusion spell before his blood had revealed it. There was a box about the length of his forearm hidden in the drawer. When he removed the box, the drawer turned to moss and dead wood and fell to the ground like bits of ash.

Frowning, he returned to the ground and after summoning some clothing, he sat down, holding the box on his lap. There was something written in runes on the lid of the box and Julian was stunned when he deciphered what they said.

_All I refuse and thee I choose._

He lifted the lid and put it carefully to the side and then reached in to unwrap the bundle inside. As soon as he touched it, fire seemed to surround him and all of the power he had wielded before his death rush into him and sang through his veins.

Even before he unwrapped the soft suede, he knew what was holding in his hand. His hands shook as he unwrapped the stave the rest of the way and then he just stared down at it.

His rune stave. It was newer looking that he had ever seen it look before and then he realized why. This wasn't his stave that had been destroyed by his brethren. This was a new stave that had been carved for him and had been the cause of his recreation and awakening. Even as he accepted the truth of what he was now holding tightly in his hands, his mind couldn't stop repeating the same question.

_How had Jenny done this?_

There was no doubt that Jenny had created it. Even if it hadn't been for the slight pulse in the wood that felt a little like Jenny had felt to him when she was close, her blood on the stave and the message on the lid of the box would have been enough to tell him where this new stave had come from.

What had this cost her? How has she done this?

_Why had she done this?_

He shook his head as he got to his feet and vanished the stave to a safe hiding place.

The last part wasn't the question that mattered the most. What mattered was that now he was alive. He was alive and if the messages he was receiving were correct, Jenny needed him. Calling up enough magic to create a new runestave and remake him would get the attention of not only his brethren but some other dark creatures that lingered both in the Shadow World and in other worlds.

If she was still alive, then she was in danger and he had to get to her immediately.

If she was dead ...

Well, his brethren weren't the only ones that knew how to unmake someone.


End file.
